Friday, February 23, 2024

Unveiling the Quiet Magic: The Allure of the Silent Book Club

"It’s just the most amazing thing to see the introvert revolution literally remaking the way we organize society — this time, the world of book clubs." - Susan Cain, Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking


Shhhhh.  Have you heard the latest?  It’s the era of the Silent Book Club.  In a world that rewards “noise,” finding a serene space where one can indulge in the simple pleasure of reading can be a rare treasure. Enter the Silent Book Club, a global phenomenon that is redefining the traditional book club model by offering an appealing option for the quiet-ish reader.

 

Dubbed "Introvert Happy Hour," this unique concept blends the joy of losing oneself in a good book with the camaraderie of like-minded individuals, all in the cozy ambiance of a favorite local spot – or the virtual comfort of home.  Specifically, the Silent Book Club provides unique benefits that cater to a wide range of readers, including: 

 

Flexibility in Reading Choices: Unlike traditional book clubs that typically require all members to read the same book, Silent Book Clubs allow members voice and choice - to bring and read whatever they choose. 

 

No Pressure to Contribute to Discussions: Silent Book Clubs eliminate the pressure to speak up or sound insightful. Members can simply enjoy the act of reading without worrying about formulating opinions or engaging in discussions.

 

Inclusivity: Silent Book Clubs are welcoming to everyone, from voracious readers to those who might feel intimidated by the commitment of a traditional book club. Since there's no common book to finish or discuss, it's easier for people who read at a slower pace or have less time to dedicate to reading to participate.

 

Encourages Reading as a Habit: By dedicating specific times for silent reading, Silent Book Clubs can help members build and maintain a regular reading habit, especially for those struggling to find the time or motivation.  


 

Yes, Silent Book Clubs are having a moment, but be assured this is only a soft launch!  With over 70 chapters that currently dot the globe, Silent Book Clubs cater to those who love reading but without the pressures and formalities. Whether you're an introvert looking for a comfortable social setting or a book lover seeking new literary adventures, the Silent Book Club (tacitly) welcomes you! 



 

 

Monday, February 5, 2024

February Literacy Loot

Greetings, Lit Lovers - 

Happy February, Black History Month, and Valentine's Day!

Baby, it's cold outside, but you can still leverage literacy learning with these instructional goodies...

Celebrate the spirit and rich literature of African-Americans with the Black History Month Literature Bundle - full texts included.  

Valentine's Day is just around the corner. Are your students acting mushy, gushy, and crushy? Check out my Valentine's Day Literary Bundle, Valentine's Day Haiku Bundle, and Sonnet Writing Bundle for super fun and engaging reading/writing activities.

Starting your Argumentative Writing Unit?  Check out this must-have Bundle for everything you need!  

Have an upcoming evaluation or learning walk? Let your scholars do the heavy lifting with best practice engagement activities like Socratic Seminars and Gallery Walks

Finally, it's a new year and a new you! Is one of your professional goals to become a teacher-leader in your building?  Impress your adminstrators and colleagues with the Teacher Leader Meeting PowerPoint Bundle that will showcase your leadership skills in no time!  

Happy teaching and learning!



With literacy love, 

Kimberly =)

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

The Power of the Gallery Walk

Gallery Walks are a powerful strategy for creating an engaging and student-centered learning environment. By promoting active learning, collaboration, and critical thinking, Gallery Walks can elevate and foster a deeper understanding of the content. 

They are also great tool/strategy to use for a top-notch evaluation! 

Here are (7) Benefits to Incorporating Gallery Walks:

  • Active Engagement: Gallery walks encourage active learning and engagement as students move around the room to interact with the displayed materials as well as each other. 

  • Critical Thinking: Students are prompted to think critically and analyze the content they encounter during the gallery walk as they respond verbally and/or in writing. 

  • Multiple Perspectives: By examining various exhibits, students gain exposure to different perspectives, ideas, and interpretations of the topic through peer-to-peer learning.

  • Differentiated Learning: Gallery walks can be adapted to cater to different learning styles and abilities, making it an inclusive strategy for all students. 

  • Formative Assessment: Teachers can use gallery walks as a formative assessment tool to gauge student understanding and identify areas where additional instruction is needed before summative assessments. 

  • Literary Analysis: In literature or language arts classes, gallery walks can focus on analyzing and discussing literary elements, themes, and characters, helping students develop strong literary analysis skills.

  • Reflection and Metacognition: Gallery walks often include reflective components where students evaluate their own learning and thought processes, promoting metacognition and self-awareness.


I have made ready-to-go Gallery Walk Lessons for the following texts: 

The Raven Gallery Walk

The Odyssey Gallery Walk

The Diary of Anne Frank Gallery Walk

Thank You, M'am Gallery Walk 

The Tell-Tale Heart Gallery Walk 

Shakespeare's Sonnets Gallery Walk 

Romeo and Juliet Gallery Walk 

Macbeth Gallery Walk 

Lord of the Flies Gallery Walk 

I Have a Dream Speech Gallery Walk 

The House on Mango Street Gallery Walk 

Frankenstein Gallery Walk 

Annabel Lee Gallery Walk 

The Catcher in the Rye Gallery Walk 

Animal Farm Gallery Walk 

A Christmas Carol Gallery Walk 

Each lesson provides everything you need, including Gallery Walk Guidelines, eye-catching Gallery Walk Posters with significant quotations from the text, a Student Note Catcher, and a comprehensive answer key for a formative/summative assessment.

Time to level-up your instruction with an amazing Gallery Walk! 


Monday, January 1, 2024

Embracing the Hygge!

I'm obsessed with hygge- the Danish word referring to the quality of coziness and comfortable surroundings that invoke an inner sense of well-being.  If you're not familiar, think of the feeling you get sitting by a fireplace wrapped in a blanket on a cold winter’s day while sipping a barista-quality latte.  TBH, I think the hygge-loving Danes are onto something.  Their national obsession with all things cozy is why Denmark is always at the top of the list of the world's happiest countries, in spite of some pretty miserable winter months.  

Maybe it's because I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska or went to college at Valparaiso University in a place affectionately known to residents as Valpo-rain/snow, Windy-ana (Valparaiso, Indiana).  Either way, my Midwest nostalgia kicks in around mid-October and I start to chase winter.  This consists not of skiing, skating, or snow-boarding - but of collecting and poring over L.L. Bean catalogues looking for the coziest, warmest, shearling lined item I can find, which is a much safer activity for me - lest I find myself snowed in for months of frigid hibernation in Nashville, Tennessee.  Not likely for Music City, but one can hope.   

Call me crazy, but I love winter!  There's nothing as beautiful or peaceful as watching snow fall on a quiet street while you're inside having cozy thoughts and deep talks with those you love best.  Lewis Carroll captured it perfectly with this sentiment, “I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”



So bring it on, Old Man Winter!  Let the days get shorter, colder, and darker.  Because then I can embrace the evening of the seasons (guilt-free!) cocooned in my blanket and ridiculously warm socks with a gripping mystery novel, The Crown Season 6 binge, or perhaps just pen a Hygge Haiku....which is what I've been doing (when not engaged in the previous two activities) to really channel the magic of the winter solstice:


Gray clouds quilt the skies

Frozen tears creep down my face

I love wintertime! 


Hot bath, Hot cocoa

Makes bone-chilling cold worth it

Where are my wool socks?


Feverish and sick

Runny nose and frozen toes

Don’t I look pretty?  


Okay...kinda cringy, but hygge haikus are super fun to write!  They demand careful observation, crisp economic language, and perhaps a zany third line of sudden insight if you're the talented-in-verse type.  So, get in your winter snugglies and take pen to paper as you write a hygge haiku.  If nothing else, you'll feel wintery warm and super Danish.    

Click for more Hygge Haiku writing ideas and inspo!


Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Do You Have Rizz?

It's official!  Oxford University Press has named “rizz″ as its word of the year.

"Rizz is a colloquial word, defined as style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner," according to the Oxford University Press.

As for the word's etymology, OUP says it's believed to have been taken from the middle of "charisma," much like "fridge" derives from refrigerator. 

Soooo....What's your rizz factor?



  

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Do We Really Need to Teach the Ah-mah-zing Schwa? Yes!

What Is It?

No, the schwa is not a new hipster band or the must-have condiment du jour.  The schwa is the unstressed sound that occurs in unstressed syllables and pronounced with a short, relaxed "uh" sound.  It’s represented by the symbol "É™." 

The schwa is also known as the laziest sound in the English language, as it demands the least of us.  The schwa is as serene and undemanding as an evening sunset. The essence of speech itself.


Examples of the Schwa: 

a - Balloon

e - Problem

u - Support

i - Family

o -Other

y - Analysis

o - Memory

i - Pencil

e - Taken


Why Teach It?

So, who cares about the laziest sound in the English language and why should we teach it in an already stacked curriculum?  Is teaching the schwa going to raise text scores?  Yes – it definitely might!   

Understanding the nuances of the schwa helps students decode and encode words which generates reading fluency and comprehension.  It also gives students the tools to navigate the complexities of spoken and written English, which enhances overall language proficiency (and raises test scores)!

Mastery of the schwa is especially beneficial for English Learners.  English is a stress-timed language, meaning that stressed syllables occur at regular intervals. The schwa often appears in unstressed syllables, and understanding its role helps English Learners grasp syllable stress, which is vital for proper pronunciation and rhythm.  In addition, recognizing schwa spelling patterns helps English Learners in both reading stamina and pronunciation.


Activities:

Ready to teach schwa awareness?  Grammar doesn’t have to be an old school "kill and drill" activity.  Fun and engaging activities to promote the schwa include:

  • Schwa Word Sorts
  • Schwa Word Wall 
  • Schwa Scavenger Hunt
  • Schwa Story Telling 
  • Schwa Tongue Twisters, such as:

            Sally sells seashells by the schwa shore.

            Eddie edits excellent essays.

            Oliver opened an umbrella.

            Betty bought bitter butter.

            Mickey’s tricky picnic was terrific.

            Walter wants to water the plants.

            Tommy’s tall tale involved a talking tomato.

            





Yes!  It’s time to teach and celebrate the ah-mah-zing Schwa! 



Thursday, November 9, 2023

The Socratic Seminar: The Secret Sauce to Building Critical Thinking

 Named after the philosopher Socrates, the Socratic Seminar is a structured dialogue between students about a complex text. When facilitated with fidelity, the Socratic Seminar leads students to exactly the kind of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking that is required of them in college and life. 

Here are seven additional benefits of the Socratic Seminar:

1. Socratic Seminars enhance critical thinking. 

2. Socratic Seminars improve speaking and listening skills. 

3. Socratic Seminars increase student engagement.

4. Socratic Seminars enhance reading comprehension

6. Socratic Seminars encourage diverse perspectives and cultivate empathy. 

7. Socratic Seminars build confidence and hone communication skills. 

I truly believe the Socratic Seminar is the secret sauce to developing young minds that think critically. As such, I have created the following Socratic Seminar packets on some of my favorite texts: 

"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe

"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Diary of Anne Frank

"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

"Two Kinds" by Amy Tan

"Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

"I Have a Dream" Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros 

The Hound of the Baskervilles

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas 

"Ain't I a Woman?" by Sojourner Truth

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Each Socratic Seminar ready-to-go bundle incorporates everything you need, including the complete texts, text-dependent seminar questions, student guidelines, Socratic Seminar Tips and Tricks, annotation symbols guide, note-taking/talking points guide, reflective writing questions, and student rubric.

So try a Socratic Seminar. You and your students will love it! 

store post